Fine
by her name is erika
Summary: "Please be okay, Devon. Please be home." / Or, in which Hilary hoped hard enough for the best even though everything was at its absolute worst. Hilary-centric. DevonHilary.


**Fine  
** **Show:** Young  & the Restless  
 **Summary: "** Please be okay, Devon. _Please be home_." / Or, in which Hilary hoped hard enough for the best even though everything was at its absolute worst. Hilary-centric. DevonHilary.  
 **Notes:** This is my FIRST Hilary and Devon piece and it's long overdue. I knooooow. But yeah, I came through. I'm just dipping my feet in the pool. So, if this gets good feedback, I may crank out more Hevon whenever inspiration strikes like…now. Happy New Years! Just something small I wrote. It took me three hours max. I hoped you guys like it. Once again, I tried my best to edit this, but all the same, forgive any typos. I will do a thorough edit in the morning.  
 **Disclaimer:** Nothing belongs to me. Once again, this is all CBS/Sony/Bell family property. I'm merely borrowing the characters and am doing this expecting no profit whatsoever.

* * *

Hilary was used to telling herself everything was fine even when they were at their worst. When her father was an unknown shadow in her memory, things were fine because it was just Ann and Rose against the world. Hilary knew her father was another person who had blended into the penal system until he was nothing but a series of numbers. _Annie, your father is a dangerous man_ , she remembered her mother telling her as if the vague revelation set a candle ablaze before the flame was blown out just as quickly. _That's all you need to know. Everything's okay, baby_. She had her mother. They didn't have much but Hilary was going to work hard. She was going to claw, kick and scratch her way to better days. _Everything is fine_. _Everything is okay_ , she told herself, the older she got.

One day, her mother discovered a new love affair that didn't involve a man although Hilary sometimes wished she had. A person could float in and out. People were replaceable, expendable, even erasable. Alcohol couldn't. The liquor could seep into the carpets. It could stain the walls and leave the couch with different coloured spots. The sharp and acidic smell could hang in the air no matter how thoroughly Hilary cleaned the tiny apartment. It was a haze that sat like a cloud she didn't want around even though it was invited.

Everything was okay, Hilary told herself even she cleaned up alcohol bottles and then stayed up all night fine turning a paper until it was academic perfection or studying for a test so intensely, she didn't care about sleep. All she wanted to do was reach for that perfect grade. Perfect grades were her ticket out of here and she'd take her mother with her. Hilary would take her mother anywhere. Lazy people loved to sleep. Irresponsible people slept and let opportunities pass them by. Hilary would admit in hindsight that she stayed awake so her mother wouldn't choke on her own vomit while in a deep alcohol induced sleep.

It had been a lifetime now since her mother fell asleep in a decrepit hotel room and never woke up, years after she decided to stop being little Annie Turner and started being Hilary Curtis who was going light the world on fire and watch it all burn. It had been years since Hilary arrived in Genoa City with Neil Winters and everyone he loved in her sights, craving nothing but the coldest and sweetest kind of revenge set to cause maximum pain.

She wasn't that woman anymore for the most part. She wasn't the woman who married Neil because everything was fine with her and he had forgiven her. She wasn't the woman who had let feelings of love and gratitude bleed together. Hilary wasn't even the woman who had kissed Jack for one misguided reason or another. After all, Jack was the first person to genuinely see her for the good person she could be. Jack was the first person to truly to be her friend, not judge her or not expect anything from her in return.

Hilary, however, was the woman who knew things were going to be fine even though she was cheating on her husband. She was going to be fine because she walked into a bar, met Devon's gaze from across the gaze when he looked at her. She could remember his bright smile because she was smiling just as much. It was a smile that reached his warm brown eyes. Hilary could also remember when she didn't have to tell herself everything was fine in that moment. She could truly admit what she felt for Devon was all consuming and so intense. it wouldn't leave Hilary when she was awake and it presented itself in every dream. It was pure, foreign but true. It was _love_.

She wore Neil's wedding ring but Devon was the first man to hold her heart in his hands.

It was Devon. Always.

—

Hilary wasn't stupid. She knew the very roots of her and Devon's relationship was grounded in lies and deceit. As much as they loved each other, that love shattered a lot of people around them. Hilary knew there were times where things she was stumbling in the dark and pushed Devon away because she couldn't bear to drag him down with her. She still found a strange comfort in being alone. If she was alone, she didn't have to depend on anymore but she didn't have to hurt them either.

She thought they had talked about it. Hilary wanted to be Devon's equal and in return, she would build trust and respect with him. In her defense, Mariah was no delicate, fragile flower. She had thorns. Mariah sure as hell had claws. Hilary just made sure hers were sharper. She hadn't been thinking when she had used the natural laws of gravity to damage Mariah's credibility as a host of GC Buzz. Usually relying on logic, Hilary hadn't used that when she put enough tension on that wire to mess with Mariah's heels and watched as she soared across the red carpet and just literally, landed on her face. Hilary hadn't been thinking when she watched Mariah fallen at her feet and reveling in how delicious the imagery was.

She could have said she didn't know what drove her to cut Mariah down. Devon was wrong, though. She wasn't evil, nor was heartless. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Hilary was right and just in her actions. She had tapped into her natural, primal instinct to fight and anyone in her way, would suffer. Hilary was fighting her own independence even as a married woman, fighting for something that was finally all hers and fighting for a job – no, career – she was passionately and could see herself doing for the rest of her life. Being the host of GC Buzz felt right. It felt as natural as wearing a second skin or a warm sweater. When did that become so evil and wrong?

Hilary hadn't told Devon because it was a moot point. Mariah was fine and unscathed. She was back at GC Buzz in the end and Hilary was happy to host the gala because Jack was a friend and because the cause was near to her heart. It was part of her narrative as a person, dark as it was but she'd do it to honor the woman that was Rose Turner.

She just needed a chance to explain this to Devon with no manipulative undertones, or because it was a means to an end. Hilary just wanted to choose truth this time and lay it bare in front of him. Hilary couldn't close her eyes because saw was the image of him storming off away from her and the elevator closing shut as she tearfully called his name. It was branded underneath her eyelids and painfully vivid.

How was that for imagery? Hilary was pretty sure her marriage had been shut closed and perhaps, she _had_ pushed Devon away and to his breaking point.

But even as awful as she felt, Hilary knew Devon would cool off and come home to her. They could talk, even yell, even argue until the sun came up but he would be there with her. Jack was sweet to offer to take her home but he was a friend. A very good friend. If Hilary took Jack up on his offer, she would have told him how scared she was. She would have looked him in the eye and told him she had really, truly done the worst. Hilary would have started crying with no timeline on stopping. No, she wouldn't go with Jack tonight.

Instead, Hilary pulled her coat closer to her, protecting herself against the cold January air. She generically told the driver her address and thus began the quiet journey home.

She had made a resolution not to cry. The wedding band on her finger glinted back at her when she glanced down at it, remembering the day she became Hilary Hamilton. It was the day she pledged her love to Devon and told him her heart was his forever. Hilary took a deep breath and went back to what she did — telling herself that everything was okay. Everything was fine and things were going to be better.

"Everything's fine," Hilary whispered, under her breath, pushing the tears that misted her vision away. "Everything's okay. Please be okay, Devon. _Please be home_."

If Hilary hoped hard enough, everything would be brighter.

Things would be okay. _They had to be_.

—

 _fin._


End file.
